Will The Fuel Cells Vehicles Save Platinum And Palladium?

Although everyone agrees that the electric revolution is looming, there is no consensus about the pace and the detailed form of the upcoming shifts in the automotive industry. In particular, some miners and analysts believe that fuel cell cars will spur or at least support the demand for platinum and palladium. For example, the world’s three largest platinum producers (Anglo American Platinum, Impala Platinum and Lonmin) invested in projects related to fuel cell technologies. Indeed, the white metal is used in catalysts in fuel cells vehicles, where power comes from combining hydrogen and oxygen over a platinum catalyst. The game is definitely worth the candle: today’s fuel cell cars need a full ounce of platinum versus a 2-4 grams PGM loading for the average gasoline or diesel vehicle.

But the rescue will not come from this side. First of all, hydrogen technology is inferior to battery electric vehicles. The key point is that hydrogen is actually not an energy source, but merely a carrier. Hence, you have to get hydrogen from natural gas or water in very energy intensive process, and then you have to compress it into liquid and transport it to the final destination. Finally, the consumers must pump the liquid hydrogen into their car, where a fuel cell converts it into electricity to drive other electric vehicles. So why should anybody bother storing energy in hydrogen instead of charging a battery pack directly? Indeed, electric cars are at least three times more energy efficient than hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Moreover, the latter technology needs much more expensive infrastructure (think about all these large factories/refineries, pipelines, trucks, storage facilities, compressors, hydrogen gas stations, and so on), while the former relies on an already existing power grid. There are, thus, much more charging stations than hydrogen fueling stations. Lack of infrastructure is perhaps the biggest barrier for fuel cell vehicles.